Guns Necessary For Personal Defense

To the editors:

In your recent editorial, you called for a ban on handguns and a repeal of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution (“Repeal Second Amendment,” May 15).

If your wish were already fact, my wife could have been raped and murdered by an armed intruder in our home on September 9, 2000. She is alive and well today because we had a handgun when we needed it.

You cite 26,000 people killed annually through the misuse of guns, yet you make no mention of the many more thousands who are alive because they were able to use guns to defend themselves from violent criminal attackers. Would you run a business where you tracked only debts in the ledger book, but not income?

I did not kill the man who broke into our home late that night—I did not even fire my pistol. He turned and ran because he assumed (correctly) that I was willing to shoot him to defend my wife and family. In that regard, our experience is similar to the vast majority of defensive gun uses each year. A gun can protect someone just by its very presence.

If you wish to leave yourselves and your loved ones helpless before violent criminals, that is your decision. However, do not to presume to deprive me of the right and means to defend my family.

Chris Alexander

Kingwood, TX

May 15, 2002